Page 48 of Good Girl
CHAPTER TEN
Juno
HEDOESN’TCOMEback that night, or the next morning.
At nine a.m. I drag myself out of bed and pad into the kitchen, hoping I’m wrong and that he’s snuck in quietly, while I’ve been dozing for a few restless minutes, and gone to sleep in his own bed.
But when I tentatively push open his bedroom door his bed is conspicuously empty.
My heart plummets with sadness.
I don’t even want to think about where he went last night. Images of that sex club we visited on our first night here flash through my head and I try to push them away. He wouldn’t do that to me, would he—go straight out and find someone new? Or is he, at this very moment, curled up in some other woman’s bed, his powerful body pressed up against her, or inside her...?
I shake my head fiercely, trying to dislodge the horrible image I’ve conjured. I burn with jealousy. But it’s tinged with anger. The thing is, I have absolutely no idea what he’s capable of, because the Sandro I thought I knew doesn’t actually exist.
After the torment of being rejected by every single man I’ve ever had a connection with—even my bloody father—I thought I’d finally found someone who genuinely liked me forme. Not because of my family name, but forme.
But I was wrong.
So I guess it’s time to go home and try to pick up the pieces of my life. At least I have my work to plough my energy into, though I suspect I’m going to have trouble concentrating on it when it feels as if my chest’s been split in two.
I give him one more hour, tidying the apartment and stripping my bed, even though I know the cleaner will come in soon to do it. But I need something to do, to take my mind off the waiting and the horrible, sinking feeling of dread in my stomach.
When the alarm on my phone goes off, signalling that the hour’s up, I pack my case, leaving out anything I’ve bought while I’ve been here. I don’t want any reminders of my time here once I’ve gone. It will hurt too much to look at them. To feel that connection to Sandro that I know now I never really had.
The taxi I’ve called is waiting outside for me when I walk out of the apartment block for the last time and I shield my aching eyes from the sun as I make my way towards the car in a sort of dreamlike trance, allowing the driver to take my bags and put them in the boot for me. I’m functioning completely on autopilot now to get me through this.
The trip to the airport takes longer than I remember it being on the way here. But then everything seems to move at a much faster pace when Sandro’s around.
An insistent bubble of grief rises to the surface as I think about him, but I push it firmly back down again. I’m not going to fall apart until I’m safely back in my apartment where I can wallow for a while before putting myself back together, piece by piece. I have a terrible feeling it’s going to take a very long time to do that, though—if I ever manage it.
How am I meant to forget him, and what we shared? It doesn’t even seem possible right now. I suspect he’ll always have a piece of my heart for ever.
Finally, we reach the airport, but it seems the gods really aren’t smiling on me at all at the moment because there’s a baggage handlers’ strike and all flights back to London have been cancelled. I’m too drained to try and organise another means of transport home right now, though, so I book into the airport hotel and get straight into bed there, pulling the covers up to my chin and staring at programme after programme on the television, barely taking any of it in, but desperately trying to stop myself from thinking about him.
I must have fallen into a deep sleep at some point in the early hours of the morning because I wake with a start to find the sun has risen on a new day.
The reason I woke so suddenly, it turns out, is because my phone is ringing. I reach over to pluck it from the nightstand to see who’s calling me.
Half of me aches for it to be Sandro, calling to apologise and tell me he loves me and can’t live without me. That he doesn’t want me to leave. Telling me to come home. But the new, more worldly half of me knows that that’s not likely to happen.
That side is right, of course. Even so, cold disappointment slides through me when I see it’s not Sandro who’s calling me, it’s my sister April.
I almost don’t pick up, not sure I can keep it together enough not to alert her to my destroyed state of mind. I’m scared that if she asks me how I am I’m not going to be able to lie and I’ll start to cry, and I’m pretty damn sure that once I start I’m not going to be able to stop.
But I’m not a little girl any more who doesn’t face things that frighten her. So I press the button to accept the call and my world crashes in a little further when my sister tells me that our father’s been in a bad car accident and might not live out the day.
Sandro
I stagger back into the apartment around mid-morning, the day after our fight, feeling like shit.
I spent the whole night walking around the city, too ashamed of myself to come back and face her, finally only giving in to the drag of sleep at dawn and taking a nap on a bench in the Parco delle Cascine.
I know I have no right to expect to find Juno still here waiting for me to get back, but still as I go from room to room... I hope.
My gut twists painfully as I open her wardrobe to find that it’s empty, apart from the couple of things she bought while she was here. Her case has gone, as has her washbag from the bathroom.
She’s left me.
